Chapter 4.2 - Mastering Earth

The sun played with the tree canopy, painting bright spots on the tablecloth, the silverware and the coffee cups. A gust of wind moved a branch above and a thin ray of light bounced off the dark surface of the coffee and shone straight into Claire’s eyes. The unexpected flash blinded her to her familiar surroundings and for a second she felt like she was floating.

The voices and the sounds around her blended into a soft hum, like musical harmony, which lulled her even deeper into this feeling of being out, out of what she didn’t even know, but it didn’t seem that important at the time.

“Claire,” Grandfather’s voice, a little more stern than he would have liked it to be, woke her up from her reverie. She dropped back into reality, so fast it actually made her dizzy.

“Yes,” she smiled back at him.

“Would you like to help me in the garden today? I could use another pair of hands.”

Claire couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t aware of the garden, from her earliest childhood she remembered always being at her grandfather’s knee, always a wellspring of questions: why are you making those holes, what is that tool for, why are you tearing those leaves, why are you moving those plants, why can’t we pick this right now. One could ask Claire questions today and get correct answers on very specific gardening practices, most of which she had no idea she knew, because they had all been deposited in her mind in layers, like nacre, over many years, and then forgotten about and covered by more layers of grown up stuff which in retrospect didn’t prove to be all that useful. 

She was thrilled to go back to the garden, she’d always been happy there.

They worked quietly for a while, tying up stems, pruning extra foliage, picking and weeding and cultivating, and Claire didn’t have to ask questions anymore, not because she knew the answers by now, but because she stopped thinking about the whys altogether, she just did the tending and nurturing instinctively. The plants called out to her, in unspoken understanding, to attend to their needs. 

“We might have to water, the dirt is a little dry,” Grandfather took a handful of soil and squeezed it in his hand to assess the level of moisture. He looked at it when his fingers released their grip and the soil quietly answered him in a way only he understood. The answer brought a soft smile to his lips. “What do you think?” he turned to Claire, nodding in her direction to test the soil for herself.

She grabbed a handful of dirt and reluctantly closed her fist around it. It felt cool, moist and velvety and its grainy substance eagerly melted into her hand, reaching out to her blood and trying to blend itself into it. Claire had to summon all of her will power to refrain from caressing it.

“Maybe not, then?” her grandfather pointed to the clumped up clod of dirt in her palm, which looked like it still held enough moisture.

“Tomorrow,” she repeated without thinking the answer the dirt had given her in silence.

“Tomorrow,” Grandfather agreed and smiled, pleased. “I see you haven’t lost your touch while you were wandering out there in the grown up world covering canvases in paint. You never told us about your life, sounds rather interesting. No?”

“I guess,” Claire parried the unpalatable subject. She didn’t want to talk about the sequence of events which had built upon each other to bring her to her current midlife crisis, not to anybody, not even to her beloved grandfather.

“That’s ok, sweetheart,” the latter comforted her, “life tries us all, nobody is exempt. That’s what this is for,” he grabbed another handful of dirt and showed it to her, smiling at it like it was exquisite treasure. “This doesn’t judge you and will sustain your life without asking for anything in return. Other than never ending labor and care, of course,” he laughed heartily.

Claire touched the soil again, laying her palm against it, flat, and she could feel something strong and steady reach out of her and dig deeply into the ground, into the dark crevices which would never be exposed to human eyes. It felt a lot like the fire roots in her dream and she jolted, panicked. 

Grandfather turned wary and got up suddenly.

“The sun is getting vicious, we need to get back inside, I guess we’ve done enough for today. Ask your grandmother if she could make us some lemonade, will you? I’ll be in in a second.”